Preaching to the Uncaring

Both Seven Pounds and Yes Man opened last Friday, and my friend Michelle and I decided to have a Friday Movie Extravaganza and go see both. Why choose, when we could watch both films, right?

Seven Pounds, Will Smith’s latest movie, was the first one we saw, and the more I think about the movie, the more issues I have with it. Smith’s performance was excellent, no question about it, and so were Rosario Dawson’s and everybody else’s. The problem I have has to do with the story and how it is presented.

If you have seen the previews for the movie, you were probably left wondering what the hell the film was about. This was part of the allure of the film: to figure out what was going on. However, I pretty much figured it out one fourth into the movie, and believe me, I’m not that smart. After I figured out what was happening and how the story was being told, all I was left with were two things: a slow, sad, overly melodramatic movie, and I feeling of disbelief that went something like “I can’t believe this is really what the movie is about and that things are going to end that way”. Unfortunately, that was what the movie was about, and that’s how things ended up being.

Now, I admit to disagreeing with the moral of the story, with the values the movie presents, so it would be near impossible for this film to please me. And still, I think it’s safe to say that the motivation of Smith’s character is suspect, and what he decides to do and how he sets himself to doing it is a bit on the ludicrous side. It’s not only that I don’t agree with what he does, but his reasoning and his way to accomplish his goal are quite lame. In fact, the only reason I can see for the film being the way it is, is for the director to have a Big Bad Drama, a Serious Tearjerker, a Tale of Morality. Well, if that’s the film you want to make, knock yourself out, but I don’t go to the movies to be depressed. And I don’t mean I don’t like to watch dramas, or that I only want to watch comedies, but when the “lesson” to be learned is so obnoxiously in-your-face obvious and you feel you are being not only spoonfed but forcibly so, then I have a problem with that. As a matter of fact, I think the gimmicky way of presenting the narrative of the story serves one purpose only: to somehow disguise the fact that this is a pretty straightforward story. That, and to be artsy, especially with all the Oscar bait opening this month. Well, I, for one, don’t really care about this type of moviemaking, so I doubt I will ever watch this movie again, and I don’t think you, dear reader, need to bother either.